Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 19, 1994 TAG: 9405190143
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ERIKA BOLSTAD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The electronic systems set off alarms when pilfered goods pass panels placed just past the checkout registers. The alarm is triggered by a thin, magnetic label on a product's packaging.
Some Food Lion stores in Virginia already have alarm system's such as those manufactured by the Florida-based Sensormatic Electronics Corp. Eventually, said a company spokesman, the entire chain will have them. Farm Fresh Inc., a Norfolk-based chain with stores in Tidewater and Richmond, recently installed them.
A 1994 Food Marketing Institute survey of grocery stores found that electronic alarm systems do deter potential shoplifters. ``Of those companies that have stores with EAS, 57 percent did not have any detections by the EAS systems in 1993,'' the survey said.
Robert Shepherd, manager of the Food Lion store at Blue Ridge Square Shopping Center in Vinton, said, ``I'm really looking forward to it. It will be a big breakthrough for the company.''
Shepherd said 90 percent of goods stolen from the Shenandoah Avenue Food Lion where he worked four years were non-food items. ``Cigarettes, drugs and aspirins are high-dollar and easier to steal.'' Another Roanoke-area Food Lion manager, who declined to give his name, added that most items stolen are worth more than $5.
According to the Food Marketing Institute, cigarettes account for 54 percent of the items stolen from supermarkets.
Ivan Hardesty, a spokesperson for Winn-Dixie stores, said shoplifting is a problem for any retail store.
``It adds to the cost of doing business for almost everyone,'' Hardesty said. ``We are certainly considering magnetic strip alarms. We're looking at what other chains are doing and what the indications are in the industry.''
Farm Fresh Chairman Michael E. Julian said that after installing the alarm system, ``In the first week or two, apprehensions are fairly brisk. Then, they taper off.''
Farm Fresh, which installed its first alarms in February, hopes to have the system in all 66 stores by July.
Grocers lose up to 1.5 percent of sales to shoplifting and other inventory losses, said Kenneth M. Gassman, a retail analyst with Davenport & Co., a Richmond brokerage.
Because supermarkets operate on a profit margin of about 1 percent of sales, consumers pay the cost of theft through higher prices.
The devices will not solve the biggest component of inventory loss - employee theft. According to a consultant's survey, employee theft accounted for 54 percent of supermarket inventory loss in 1993, compared to 24 percent for shoplifting and 10 percent for vendor errors and dishonesty. The wider variety of merchandise a supermarket offers, the bigger a target it becomes for shoplifting.
``They are selling auto parts, clothes and more health and beauty aids,'' Gassman said. ``If it's a pure grocery store or one that really doesn't have a wide selection of pilferable merchandise, then they really don't need ... those things.''
Hardesty said, ``Hopefully the honest customers will realize we are trying to protect them by holding costs down and reducing or eliminating shoplifting,''
Customers have mixed reactions. ``My first impression was they were sort of offensive, though I know why they're doing it,'' said Anthony Williams, a computer programmer who was shopping at a Farm Fresh in Chesapeake. ``I'll still shop here, but I wish they would make these things less visible.''
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
by CNB